Vintage Fun

Before I start throwing my Cape Town adventures at this blog I have one last Jo’burg outfit that I must share. The look is fun and exciting but I have not had time to show it to you so as I sit procrastinating instead of doing my laundry I thought I would use the time somewhat productively and finally share this look with you.

Just being in this dress puts me in a good mood

So one of the best parts of this dress is that I can turn in circles and the dress reacts beautifully.

I love this camera

The look involves an old vintage styled dress that I have and a hand me down red scarf. I was at the time in a good mood and I needed a look that would mirror how I felt. I grabbed this dress doubting its abilities to be fun but still willing to give it a try. I am glad I did because it lifted my mood even further. It is light and loose and when you twirl yourself in a circle while wearing it, it responds almost magically. The only complaint I have about this dress is that it has no petticoat and so I had to scrounge for one of my own and it is never good to add an extra piece of work to an outfit (for someone lazy like me) but when I am in a good mood I don’t mind nearly as much.

The scarf that I have tied around my head in a style to which my mother almost always gives a look of dismay, was my grandmothers and I like it because it seems like the typical red and white bandanna but when one gets closer one may realize it has more individual characteristics (this also makes me feel better about following the crowd).

I had to end the look with the white socks and sneakers. I realize it imitates a sort of school uniform look but that helped the feeling of having fun and being a kid again that the dress brought anyway.

The Polaroid went so well with the colour of my dress that I had to grab it to bring along besides one cant where such a vintage look with out recording it as a vintage (polaroid) picture.

I still think that a contributing factor to all dresses designs should be how well they twirl.

Enjoy your weekend and hopefully I’ll have new Cape Town inspired stuff up soon x

That valedictory dress

 

 

As I spoke about in one of my earlier posts, I recently had my valedictory dinner. A special evening where my grade and I celebrated our high school career as it comes to an end. It was a formal event and one which we got to dress up for. Most of the girls went for black and I got a few fashion inspirations for when I search for my ‘little black dress’. Another big favourite was formal jumpsuit. They are the new in-thing so a few girls were trying it out with varying success. I however was one of the few who delved into a bright colour. I don’t usually wear green but I do love the style of this dress which is what caused me to try it on and I fell in love. The colour works surprising well with my light skin and dark hair. The flow of the dress is classes and sleek. I love the modern cut and how it makes my body look. Of course it couldn’t be a ‘me’ outfit if I didn’t have something clashing. So my accessory colour became the vibrant and crazy orange. The style of my necklace is a that of tradition in South Africa. It is an old necklace which represents culture and heritage in South Africa. It felt good to have something to do with home. The necklace does not come from my personal culture but it does come from a culture of my country and that is very important to me. Other than that I looked for clean and simple (black and orange) accessories. It was a classic yet crazy look and the mature version of my style.

Princess for a night

In South Africa, in the last year of school, one of the highlights of the year is the Matric Dance. It is a night similar to the American prom night (I think) and allows one all the excuses to dress up as fancy as one can go. We spend weeks picking the right dress, the right accessories and of course the right date. Mine was quite early in the year but I was fortunate enough to be invited by two of my friends to go to their dances quite recently.

The first was on the 20th of September (right in the middle of my exams) and it was the St Johns dance. I went with a friend of mine who spoilt me with a beautiful bunch of flowers which I wish could have lasted forever. The evening was beautiful and as it belonged to one of the top schools in the country it had a budget beyond our dreams so every detail from the table settings to the lighting was out of this world. It had a winter wonderland theme and the room was a wash of soft white shapes with silver and blue bits completing it. They even had an ice sculpture on the way in (a bit of a waste of money especially since it got brutally hailed on but still made my mouth open with awe). We were lucky enough to arrive before the rain started (yes it rained – this is a bit of a tradition for St Johns dances) so it didn’t dampen our evening although it did soak some people. I witnessed girls trying to dry their dresses and hair in the bathroom hand dryers because they were so wet, but even those girls had smiles on their faces because the evening was incredible. It was peaceful and memorizing. The boy who was my date for the evening was sweet and polite (the kind of polite that verges on sexism) and he took good care of me. For what ever reason the girls at my school are very closely linked with the St Johns boys so there were lots of people who I knew there. My best friend even sat next to me for dinner. I didn’t end up going to the after party as I had an exam on the monday but I don’t know how much I missed considering that it was a roof top party and it had poured with hail and rain only a couple of hours earlier.

Obviously the most exciting part of the evening for me was getting to dress up. I didn’t buy a dress but because I have a class of 111 girls all of whom got dressed for our dance, I had a huge selection to choose from. It is an unofficial agreement int he school girl code to share dresses and so I had my pick of the beautiful gowns but I knew exactly which one I wanted. When I first saw it, I fell in love. When my friend said hello to me at our dance dressed like she was out of a fairytale, the picture of perfection I knew I had to wear it. She designed the dress herself and it is a beautiful soft blue and white dress that has a full skirt and comes in at the waist. It is modest and simple yet elegant. I had to obviously give my twist to it which is why I matched it with clashing coral clutch and due to a slight height difference I couldn’t wear heels so I ended up in matching coral sandals. I felt beautiful, I felt comfortable and i had a wonderful evening.

The second dance was with an old family friend of mine. He goes to Parktown Boys High. This is a government school in Johannesburg. This dance was completely different. The people, the budget, the setting and the atmosphere were worlds apart from the St John’s one but still enjoyable. Both the boys and the girls were more relaxed as it wasn’t as hyped up as the previous one. Sadly there weren’t many girls that I knew there. I did make friends with some of the girls at our table but it would have been nice to have some friendly faces around however my date was there and he was more than sufficient. His friends were I think it’s safe to say, insane but they were friendly and nice and extremely entertaining. Because my date is a prefect we had to open the dance with a waltz. I can’t waltz but neither could anyone else so we just looked like a clump of chaos but it was fun and light-hearted so no one minded. This time I did go to the after party. It was at Manhattans and so a few of my school friends came. It was just like any other time clubbing except I forgot to pack flats to I spent the entire night in my wedges. My feet still havent forgiven me.

To this dance I borrowed another girls dress. This one was completely different. It was a grey navy with a low sweet heart type neckline. It went in at my waste, emphasising it (and making me feel super skinny which was nice). It was ever so slightly to big for me and not quite as comfortable as the previous one but I still enjoyed wearing it and I liked dabbling in the more daring make up and hair that went with it and of course I got to wear heels. I also enjoyed this dance and I found that noting the vast differences between the dances was entertaining and eye-opening.